Zwani
Zwani (in Latin script) Зўани (in Cyrillic script) ზჳანი (in Georgian script) (/zwa.ni/) is a language spoken by humans on Jupiter's moon, Europa, in the Kingdom of Europa, where it is the sole official language of it's entire population of 32 million people. It is written using either the Latin, Cyrillic, or Georgian alphabets. ' ' General information Zwani is a synthetic nominative-accusative head-initial language. It is considered a language isolate. Word order is usually (S)VO, but the subject is optional as Zwani is a pro-drop language because the verb conveys personality. Oddly enough, while being a pro-drop language, Zwani also possesses a zero copula, meaning that conjugations of the verb to be are usually omitted in present tense imperative sentences. Pronouns, when used, are usually for emphasis or with the imperative form of a verb. Verbs conjugate for numbers, tense, person, and mood. Nouns decline for number and case. Pronouns decline for gender, number, case, and person. History In the year 2050 a plan to terraform Earth's moon, Mars, mars' moons, and the four largest moons of Jupiter is proposted in order to avoid over-population on Earth. It is approved and accepted by almost everyone, and by 2100, all 8 celestial bodies are inhabitable by humans. By the year 3000, all of the Mars and all of the moons are fully inhabited and have thriving societies. Zwani is spoken on Jupiter's smallest inhabited moon, Europa (Zwani: Ózłopa). At first, three main languages were spoken on Europa: English, Turkish, and Russian, with smaller diasporas of languages such as Polish, Armenian, German, and Georgian. By 2500, the speakers of Earth-languages are starting to speak multiple creoles in order to communicate, and by 3000, a single creole language is formed, which eventually evolves into an entirely new language as the amount of Europians increase. By the year 4000, Zwani is spoken natively by the entire population of the Kingdom of Europa, about 32 million people. Phonology 'Consonants' 'Vowels' 'Alphabets' The alphabet used is dependant on where in the Kingdom of Europa one is. The Latin script is the most widely used, but if one is in an area with a large amount of ethnic Russians or Georgians, it would be expected to see the Cyrillic script or Georgian script respectively. Most, if not all, Europians can read each script to some degree. While all official documents are required by law to be written in the Latin alphabet, there is no law against using the Cyrillic or Georgian alphabets. In some jurisdictions the Cyrillic and Georgian alphabets are used by large amounts of people. All three scripts are regulated by the College of Zwani. The ethnic Armenians historically used the Armenian script, but over time they adapted to using the Georgian script. While neither official, nor regulated, a few small, isolated villages still use the Armenian script to write Zwani. If two vowels are written in a row, they are always pronounced as two vowels seperated by a glottal stop. Because of this, the glottal stop (', ъ', or ჸ'), despite being an official letter of each script, is usually omitted in writing because it only appears between two vowels in a row. All official documents are written with the glottal stop. Latin Cyrillic Georgian 'Phonotactics ©©©V©©© Any single consonant may occur initially, and any consonant other than /j/ may end a syllable. The onset's actual structure is ©©(S) where (S) is a semivowel. The only 3-consonant consonant clusters allowed are str, spr, ''and ''skr. The final consonant in any word can never be a semivowel. Grammar 'Pronouns' These are the only pronouns in Zwani. In order to form object pronouns (such as me, him, them), the pronoun takes on the accusative case suffix ''-ja. Similarly, in order to form possesive pronouns (such as my, mine, your, yours, his, hers), the pronoun takes on the genetive suffix ''-s. Zwani does not distinguish posessive deteminers and posessive pronouns other than sentence placement. That is, a posessive determiner will always appear before a noun (jos arib my beer) and a possesive pronoun will appear after a verb (wo jos it is mine). 'Nouns' Number prefixes *the glottal stop is only used when the noun begins with a vowel *if you're speaking about two of something, the dual number must be used. this is for ease of speaking *the dual and plural prefixes force the noun or pronoun to take the plural conjugation of the verb if the noun or pronoun is the subject Case suffixes *the nominative case suffix ''-ło is rarely used, so the nominative is almost always unmarked unless the subject is judged by the speaker as needing emphasis *nouns can never end in /w/, so the accusative case suffix is always ''-ło and the reflexive case suffix is always ''-łoja'' *similarly, nouns can never end in /j/, so the accusative case suffix is always ''-ja'' *the genetive case ending is only ever ''-is if the noun ends in an affricate or a fricative other than /f/ or /v/ *the reflexive "case" is really the nominative and accusative case stacked, meaning it's the subject and object of the verb and translates as ''SUBJ ______s *self '' 'Adjectives' Adjectives in Zwani do not undergo any sort of declension and preceed the word they modify. However, adjectives may take on suffixes. Adjectives that take on an article can be used to say things like ''the red one, a cold one', etc.'' There are no irregular adjectives (such as good, better best), so all adjectives take on the comparative and superlative suffixes (such as good, gooder, goodest). Adjective suffixes '''Verbs *Because Zwani is pro-drop and possesses a zero copula, in statements such as x is y the pronoun can not be omitted *Commands (verbs in the imperative mood) must be accompanied by a pronoun because the imperative mood does not distinguish personality *To form questions, the subject and the verb are switched, making the question are you pretty?, "Aźit tu śóm?" not "Tu aźit śóm?. *Questions with the verb to be may not drop the pronoun or the copula 'Conjugation pattern' 'Conjugation rules' the subjunctive mood adds the prefix om- to the beginning of a verb. if the beginning of the verb is a bilabial nasal /m/, the prefix is changed to omo- to avoid pronunciation issues, such as in the verb mjuzem '''(subjunctive form: '''omomjuzem 'omomjuzem). if the beginning of the verb is a velar nasal /ŋ/, the pronunciation of the velar nasal (not the orthography) is simplified to /g/, such as in the verb omńahum omgahum. to form the past tense, a -t- is added on to the stem of the verb before the final vowel. if the final consonant is a /d/, /t/, /χ/, or if there are two consonants (no matter the consonants), a schwa (/ə/, written ú) must be added to avoid pronunciation issues, such as in the verb mutem'' mutem, which makes its past tense conjugation '''mutútem ''mutətem. to form the future tense, the last vowel in the stem is doubled and the two vowels are separated by a glottal stop (see below) '''Example Conjugation of pajam (to do) Present Tense (stem: paja) Past Tense (stem: pajta) Future Tense (stem: paja'a) 'Verb affixes' Verbs in Zwani can take prefixes, infixes, and suffixes. They are always attached to the stem of the verb before conjugation unless otherwise stated. Vocabulary Zwani Dictionary at ConWorkShop (updated frequently) Greetings Numbers *numbers are formed pretty simply, by adding words together until you get the desired number, such as in oćatoć, which means 333. *numbers such as 100 or above can be multiplied to get numbers like 300, óćtajút. *ordinal numbers are formed by adding the suffix ''-nći'' or ''-inći'' if the word ends in a vowel or a consonant, respectively. an example would be ońinći, or first *the number 2 is rarely used because, when speaking, the dual number prefix is always attached to a noun given two things are being spoken about *numbers modifying a noun or phrase always force the plural prefix on a noun or pronoun and the plural conjugation of that noun or pronoun Example text Category:Languages